Caracal’s Putting Their Troubles behind Them with Ambitious New Rifles—SHOT Show 2014

Authors Paul Helinski Rifles SHOT Show 2014

Caracal USA
https://www.caracal.ae/

Caracal’s Putting Their Troubles behind Them with Ambitious New Rifles—SHOT Show 2014Caracal showed up at the SHOT Show this year with some fantastic new guns. The complete recall of the Model C pistols might very well have wiped out some fledgling companies, but not Caracal. The crew from the UAE brought out some exciting new hardware.

The CS308 has a familiar look. The skeletal .308 precision rifle is designed and built entirely by Caracal, and not pieced together out of parts like some of its competition. While some might consider this a hindrance, especially those who like to modify their guns to suit their own unique styles, Caracal sees this ground-up approach as a way to custom tune their guns. From the stock to the muzzle, every inch is designed to work with this one caliber in this unique package. The trigger is completely adjustable. If you don’t like where it sits in the trigger guard, move it forward or back. If you want more or less weight on the back end of the two-stage pull, that is adjustable, too.

The gun that has me worked up is a rocking 9mm carbine. The CC 10 makes shooting a pistol seem arduous. This gun is incredibly fast. The ergonomics make for rapid sight acquisition. The weight of the carbine helps mitigate recoil. It isn’t available yet in the American market, but it should be showing up in stores pretty soon.
The future looks bright for Caracal. If they can navigate the reintroduction of their pistols stateside and bring even more rifles like this market, Caracal just might be a serious contender.

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  • loupgarous August 29, 2016, 4:56 pm

    It’d truly be interesting to see that in a .40 S&W or even better, 10mm Norma loading (which reminds me of Col. Jeff Cooper’s “Thumper” 10mm project). Not downing Caracal because they’re from the UAE, but not impressed with their customer focus.

    And yeah, I know this is two years after this article first appeared. Any of you who bought their 9mm pistol ever got a working pistol out of them?

    • loupgarous August 29, 2016, 4:57 pm

      Ooops – wrong article. Moderator, could you do me a favor and delete these two posts? Thanks!

  • Evan February 1, 2014, 11:48 am

    First, I consider pistol caliber carbines irrelevant. There’s no need for them, anything they do can be done better with a 5.56 or .300BLK. I’ve shot the Beretta that looks just like that one and was underwhelmed, I certainly wouldn’t buy a knock off of a gun I didn’t like to begin with. Also, the AR platform is modular and adjustable, and the gun can essentially be fitted to the individual, unlike this, where you get what they give you and that’s it. Add to that the fact that pistol caliber carbines are usually offered by companies that make garbage that you’d never find in my gun safe, like Hi-Point and Kel-Tec, and well, there’s really no point in owning one (I will make an exception for transferable machine guns, but that’s it). That being said, I also wouldn’t buy a gun from a company with an abysmal record from an unfriendly region of the world, and Caracal fits both categories.

    • Kivaari August 26, 2016, 7:53 pm

      This is different than the Beretta. The Beretta feeds magazines through the pistol grip. I think you are selling the pistol caliber carbines short. I packed an MP5 for about 10 years and never felt under-gunned. The MP5 is essentially a pistol caliber carbine. The fact that it is select-fire is actally meaningless as it is used primarily as a semi-auto carbine. Even the FBI when issuing the MP5 issued the SF-single fire variant for most agents. Full-auto is simply unneeded. Now I didn’t mind up gunning to a M4 carbine, but from a practical point of view they both had about the same ability when fitted with iron sights. At the time we did not have advanced optics to take advantage of the flatter trajectory of the 5.56mm.

  • Roger Frazier January 29, 2014, 5:16 pm

    I hope they had to pay alot for this advertising.

  • JeffN January 29, 2014, 3:57 pm

    Why in the world does it have a grip safety? Never thought I’d seen one on a pistol

    • Muhjesbude January 29, 2014, 5:45 pm

      They think the 1911 shooters will think it’s cooler then, and buy it.

    • Kivaari August 26, 2016, 7:47 pm

      What about the Springfield Armory XD series pistols? Uzi SMGs?

  • Larry E. January 28, 2014, 11:02 pm

    I agree with the above comment and also fail to see the “why” in the face of a far superior Beretta product. “Fantastic” new guns?? I consider Caracal to be an irrelevancy. What do they sell that cannot be had in a better quality firearm elsewhere?

    • Skydog January 29, 2014, 4:20 pm

      Maybe it’s a “ticket” to the Shot Show, to get a closer look at products they can not get their hands on, otherwise??

  • Paul Echols January 28, 2014, 4:56 pm

    Caracal International L.L.C. is a subsidiary of Tawazun Holding from the United Arab Emirates.
    Says it all as far as I am concerned..

  • BRASS January 28, 2014, 2:21 pm

    I’m not going to buy from a UAE company. Anything I can buy from them I can get from a US company or build myself from US components.

  • Skydog January 28, 2014, 12:42 pm

    All totally proprietary 308 rifle ( coming from a trade restrictive part of the world ) that has no interesting features other than it’s trigger group, good luck folks. Two products that I give two thumbs down to.

  • Ringo Lapua January 28, 2014, 12:26 pm

    This looks like a lower cost knockoff of the Beretta Storm which I have own for a few years now. Love my Storm and have a handgrip, suppressor, red dot scope and laser light combo. Very accurate and adds about 200 fps to the exiting round, so it is faster and hits harder. If you want the same accuracy at a fraction of the cost, buy a Hi Point carbine in .45, .40 or 9mm. My favorite is the Hi Point Carbine .45 which for under $300 is a good as it gets.

    • noel P. Mellen January 28, 2014, 11:08 pm

      The big drawback of the Hi Point is its 10 round mag. and the lack of aftermarket add ons. Its high side is its low cost and ability to take some abuse. I use mine to shoot hogs and if anything goes wrong I’m not out much. I still think the cx Storm is the great weapon. come on Hi Point make a 15-20 round mag!

  • Buck Ofama January 28, 2014, 11:58 am

    WHY do all of the pistol caliber carbines have to have the UGLY thumb-hole stocks?!?!?!?

  • Wayne Petersen January 28, 2014, 10:28 am

    I wouldn’t buy anything from Caracal. I bought a Caracal F pistol in November 2012. A week later they announced a re-call. They still haven’t fixed or replaced the pistol. I’ve had the pistol over a year and haven’t been able to shoot it and I certainly can’t sell it.

    • DaveGinOly January 28, 2014, 2:36 pm

      Same here. I had a Caracal F and waited and waited for Caracal to replace it. I finally changed my mind and just had them send me a refund. Contrast this with Springfield Armory, which recalled the XDs, said “send them in,” and laid on extra employees to handle the 250,000 or so pistols that came in, turn them around, and get them back to their owners (me being one of them).

    • Muhjesbude January 29, 2014, 5:40 pm

      Maybe those should have been given to the Al-Queda’ customers in Syria and Iraq?

  • Diego January 28, 2014, 8:39 am

    I am surprised at the incredible likeness to the Beretta Storm PX4 Carbine, They almost look like twins. There are of course differences, Like the eject port location and other things but I am very surprised that Beretta isn’t screaming about the similarities. Yet what do I know? A lot of firearms look alike, AR 15’s is I guess the best example. So with that in mind, The price of the Beretta is around 957.00 and they are saying their 9mm is going to retail at around 600.00 so that in itself may bring a lot of 9mm carbine lovers out of the closet to grab one if they ever do reach the US market. Well that being said I wish them luck but where did they say it was made?

    • Clyde Fowler January 28, 2014, 9:29 am

      They are made in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

  • WWW January 28, 2014, 8:31 am

    The CC10-9mm is a bad copy of the outstanding Beretta CX4-Storm. The CC10 puts the magazine forward of the trigger guard. Not impressive! Finish (in the pic) is garage shop quality.

    • Muhjesbude January 29, 2014, 5:38 pm

      Yup, that’s what it is. A Berretta knock off. And while the Beretta is a nice weapon, it is superfluous in reality combat, being a bit too ‘carbine like’, and ALL other things considered.

      I don’t know how the CC109mm got the writer of the advertisement so ‘all worked up, or why its such a ‘rocking carbine’? Or what he means by it being so ‘incredibly fast’? Fast on what?

      If you like the idea of a pistol caliber CQB PDF, with a little more ‘versatility’ and extended application, i hate to sound like this is going to sound, but not much beats the old die hard Mac 10 platform in 9mm select fire once you trick and tweak it out a bit to mitigate its minor shortcomings. It carries like a pistol, and can be fired like one, but the very non obtrusive compact slide out stock works very well, better than almost anything else we’ve ever used, when switching to more aimed tactical firefight mode. The upper even pops off as fast as an AR upper and can be quickly converted into a 12 inch assault barrel for more controllable full auto fire, or a full 16 inch barrel. With good fast optics, its a ‘best buy’ for the money and parts availability. Given a choice between a Mac 9mm with the extendable wire stock, Who wants to bet which one any experienced operator will pick?

      Although semi auto only, Next would be the Glock PDF upgrades especially since they now have such nice high cap mags for them and the lighter trigger mods.

      And if you can’t have balls at the gun club range unless your shit is more more ‘exotic’ than the next guy’s, well then you can always get one of those cool 5.7 uppers with those top loaded factory PDF mags as an upper for your AR carbine lower. It’s probably around the same weight and length of this CC10 but would certainly qualify as a more formidable PDF compared to the CC10.

      And this CS308 looks like something out of a ‘Transformers’ movie. I don’t care how ‘adjustable’ everything is, No bolt action sniper rifle is worth the gouge gun price anymore when you have good sub moa AR-10’s available for less.

      Nobody who knows anything about ‘bang for the buck’ or copy cat gouging is going to buy either of these.

  • bill January 28, 2014, 6:56 am

    I am intrested in a ruger hand gun hammerless 357 cal.

    • Brad January 28, 2014, 8:38 am

      Get a S&W 340PD…

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